


the sky within reach

by arabmorgan



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Developing Relationship, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24005083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabmorgan/pseuds/arabmorgan
Summary: "The year he turned seventeen, Jung Wooyoung met Kang Yeosang for the very first time."Or, Wooyoung and Yeosang, from the very beginning.
Relationships: Jung Wooyoung/Kang Yeosang
Comments: 40
Kudos: 217





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...next week will mark two months since I first joined the fandom - only two months and I'm already whipped for woosang like this oops.

Wooyoung had always known that the stage and its spotlights called to him.

Even as a child he had been confident, the kind of personality that shone brightly and attracted others to his spark. He was liable to dive headfirst into trouble without hesitation, but also just as likely to practice obsessively for fourteen hours straight to perfect his choreography.

Perhaps the staff at the auditions recognised the drive in him. Perhaps they saw a boy who, even if he fell a dozen times, would get back up again just as fearlessly. Or perhaps they simply liked his face and the way he danced. Whatever the case, Wooyoung embraced the start of his trainee life as whole-heartedly as he did everything else. For sixteen-year-old Jung Wooyoung, the concept of failure did not exist.

It was a bit of a miracle that he thrived rather than chafed in the structured environment he was presented with, but he got along well enough with the handful of other trainees around him, and the coaches seemed to find his wildness amusing. _Make sure you keep up that energy_ , his favourite vocal teacher often told him, and he would wink at her before running off, already yelling for the other boys to wait up even before he had stepped out of the practice room.

The year he turned seventeen, Jung Wooyoung met Kang Yeosang for the very first time.

It wasn’t a particularly momentous occasion by any means. There were no dramatic collisions or heated misunderstandings, only the door of the dance studio clicking open behind Wooyoung just as he was counting his way through his footwork, the mirror reflecting an unfamiliar figure shuffling in with a large duffle bag clutched in one tense fist. With a forceful-looking motion of his shoulder, the stranger dragged a suitcase into the room behind him with a dull grind of over-taxed wheels.

Wooyoung immediately stopped frowning at his own reflection, his expression melting from the sexy lip bite he had been attempting to perfect into one of bewildered surprise. The hour was late enough that he would have expected any new trainees to go straight to the dorm, and this guy was definitely new.

“Hey,” he chirped, spinning around to face the newcomer with a grin already tugging at his lips. Some of the more experienced trainees, already secure in their existing friendships and wary of fresh competition, didn’t like interacting with the newbies, but Wooyoung didn’t mind them. He had been new too not so long ago.

The boy jumped, clearly not having seen Wooyoung in the corner. His head snapped up, dark hair curling gently over his eyes as he let out a long breath of surprise.

“Oh –” The word seemed to slip out unbidden, in a voice deeper than his doe-eyed visage belied, before he abruptly dipped into a low bow. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Kang Yeosang.”

“Yeosang,” Wooyoung repeated carefully, testing the curl of the syllables on his tongue before he bowed in return. “I’m Jung Wooyoung.” He raked his gaze over the other boy’s face, taking in the sharply angled brows and wary gaze, the faint curve of his upper lip, the barely visible smudge of pink by his left eye that was mostly obscured by his hair.

There was a distinct steeliness in the set of Yeosang’s shoulders, a latent defensiveness hidden behind his shy demeanour, and Wooyoung immediately softened himself to match. He knew he could be a lot to take in sometimes, and this guy looked like he’d need a bit more time before he was ready for the excessive excitement that was often involved where Wooyoung was concerned.

“You’re new, right?” he asked eagerly, pressing onwards before Yeosang could do more than nod. “Why did you even come here anyway? There won’t be any lessons till tomorrow, you know.”

Yeosang flushed, his lips quirking upwards shyly. “I just wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t get lost tomorrow. It’s my first day.”

Wooyoung grinned at that. “That’s cute,” he said teasingly, and hooked his arm into the crook of Yeosang’s elbow. “But now that you’re here, I can show you the dorm. I was just heading back anyway.” He felt Yeosang tense in his grip for a moment, almost as if he was considering whether or not to pull away from Wooyoung, this strange boy that he knew nothing about, but then he shrugged and hoisted his duffle bag onto his shoulder.

“Sure, that would be great,” he muttered, and this time his smile was a little crooked at the corners, a little sardonic and somehow more _real_. “I’m lucky you were here. I guess I didn’t think this through very well.”

“Lucky you,” Wooyoung agreed cheerfully, squeezing Yeosang’s arm lightly. He pulled the suitcase from Yeosang’s grip, pointedly ignoring any protests and attempts to reclaim the momentarily stolen property, before tugging both suitcase and boy out of the studio.

“Is this your first company?” he asked curiously, navigating the empty corridors with ease until they were out in the open, the chilly night air nipping at his exposed skin. It was only then that Wooyoung realised, thrilled by the unexpectedness of meeting someone new, he had left his hoodie hanging on the back of the chair in the studio. With a soft exhalation of annoyance, he pulled himself tighter into Yeosang’s side, and the other boy pressed back without question.

“Yeah, I’m excited to be here,” Yeosang said quietly, although Wooyoung thought that he mostly sounded nervous, like his voice was stuck somewhere in the back of his throat.

Glancing over and catching Yeosang’s eye, Wooyoung beamed, as bright and reassuring as he could manage. “Cool, this is my first company too. It’s not that bad once you get used to it. Let’s work hard and debut together, okay?” He nudged his shoulder against the other boy’s, making Yeosang stumble with a huff of surprise, but when he looked back at Wooyoung his eyes were crinkled in an almost-smile.

“You don’t even know me,” he scoffed, but not unkindly. “What if I get kicked out because I’m no good at anything?”

Wooyoung snorted in disbelief, with the kind of baseless conviction that only a teenage boy who believed he already understood everything about how the world worked could muster. “No company accepts useless trainees. You don’t have to be good at everything, but I’m sure you’re good at _something_.” He grinned, tumbling roughshod over the other’s feeble protests, and spent the rest of the walk back to the dorm regaling a resigned-looking Yeosang with increasingly wild stories about the antics that he and the other trainees had gotten up to over the past months.

Truthfully, once they reached the dorm, Wooyoung should have showed Yeosang to Yeonjun’s room and left it at that. They had two empty beds in there, while Wooyoung’s room only had one. Instead, he found his grip on Yeosang’s arm tightening minutely, like he expected someone to leap out of nowhere to quarrel with him over where the newbie should sleep.

Going off first impressions, he kind of liked Yeosang. He seemed to be able to put up with Wooyoung’s prattling, and while he wasn’t very loud, there was something sharp about him, like whatever he was holding back on the tip of his tongue would be somewhat mean but also cuttingly funny. He had the _potential_ to be a lot of fun.

“C’mon,” Wooyoung murmured, voice lowering to a near-whisper as he poked his head into the nearest room. “I think everyone else should be in bed by now.”

He pushed Yeosang’s suitcase into what was hopefully an unobtrusive corner of the room, bumping over what was probably messily strewn clothes and other knick-knacks on the floor as he went. It took Yeosang a full minute after that to dig through his entire bag in search of his toothbrush, and by the time they stumbled out of the pitch-black room a couple of false alarms later, Wooyoung was letting out intermittent snickers of near-hysterical amusement while Yeosang smacked him on the arm repeatedly in a failed attempt to shut him up.

“Stop!” Wooyoung whined, pretending to crumble beneath the extended assault and throwing his hands up in a dramatic show of surrender. Yeosang let out a small sigh, his toothbrush-wielding hand dropping to his side as he stared at Wooyoung. The frown on his face was exasperated yet tolerant, like he couldn’t quite understand his decision to associate with Wooyoung but continued to do so anyway. The sight of it only made Wooyoung snicker even more.

Crawling into bed half an hour later, hair still damp from his shower, Wooyoung fell asleep quickly to the uneasy tossing and turning of Yeosang in the opposite bunk. The next thing he knew, however, someone was tugging rudely at his leg and calling his name. Some inconsiderate asshole had also switched the light on, and it was currently glaring right through his eyelids into his brain.

“Okay, okay, I’m up,” he mumbled, kicking out at the hand grabbing his ankle. He heard a muffled _oof_ as whoever it was retreated down the ladder, leaving him to slither sluggishly off the side of the bunkbed on his own like a snake in winter.

When he emerged from the bathroom, still slightly bleary-eyed, he saw that Yeosang was already up, tucked into a corner of their run-down couch with a bowl in his hand, deep in conversation with another trainee. There was a beanie on his head even though they were all indoors, and Wooyoung blinked at the sight before wandering into the kitchen in search of his own breakfast.

He didn’t see the newbie again until after school, when they were all gathered back at the company building for their first lesson of the day. Yeosang trailed into the dance studio wide-eyed, although the rest of his face seemed to be set in as neutral an expression as he could manage. Wooyoung looked over at him in interest – he himself was an open book, with the poorest poker face one could ever imagine, but he had never actually thought of doing anything about it.

As if sensing Wooyoung’s gaze on him, Yeosang turned his head slightly, one eyebrow cocking when a grinning Wooyoung met his stare head-on. Flapping his hand enthusiastically, Wooyoung motioned for Yeosang to join him nearer to the front, a suggestion that he vehemently tried to disagree with but eventually ended up giving in to with a tired exhalation. Very few people were able to outmatch Jung Wooyoung’s dogged persistence in the most banal of things.

Besides, maybe it was just Wooyoung making assumptions, but he thought that Yeosang seemed marginally more relaxed after he had sidled over to stand by a familiar face.

Yeosang stuck by Wooyoung’s side for only a few days more, before he began making friends of his own and eventually drifted naturally into company that was slightly less loud. Still, he always had a small smile for Wooyoung, and he endured with long-suffering grace Wooyoung’s attempts to scare him by jumping out from around multiple corners, and the way Wooyoung might sling an arm around his shoulder as he skipped past, dragging a protesting Yeosang along beside him.

There was something particularly fun about playing around with Yeosang, almost like a challenge of sorts to make him smile. Wooyoung liked seeing Yeosang’s smiles – he showed them so infrequently, holding his amusement in through sheer willpower until it burst out of him in a swift blaze of brilliance, that every glimpse felt like an achievement. He was also one of the few other trainees who had any amount of patience for Wooyoung’s antics.

Of course, Wooyoung played around well enough with everyone, but he always had more energy than he knew what to do with, and most of the other boys would eventually lose interest or begin to find him tiresome as the hours ticked by. He wasn’t stupid, and he didn’t particularly enjoy feeling like a bother, but Yeosang never gave off the impression of not wanting Wooyoung around. He spent a lot of time rolling his eyes and politely declining to participate in Wooyoung’s tricks, but even at his driest his words were always underlaid with a modicum of fondness.

Maybe it was the helpful first impression Wooyoung had made, or maybe they simply happened to complement each other in the way rare few opposites did. Whatever the case, Wooyoung found that he did like Yeosang quite a bit after all. He never had to worry about looking like a fool in front of the other boy, whether he was spilling water down the front of his shirt when he tripped on thin air, or when he laughed so hard his stomach hurt and Yeosang told him to stop cackling like a banshee with a perfectly straight face.

Wooyoung still spent much of his time with Yeonjun and a couple of the older trainees, rarely going out of his way to pester Yeosang, but then he didn’t really have to. In such a restricted environment, it was inevitable that they were almost always brushing shoulders with each other.

It was three weeks into May on a Tuesday when Yeosang approached Wooyoung for more than a casual conversation for the first time. They had just finished their last class of the day and everyone was already scattering – some back to the dorm, some staying put to continue practicing their singing, some to the next-door convenience store to replenish their dwindling snack supplies. Wooyoung was just shrugging into his jacket when he felt the faintest pressure on his upper arm, a tentative touch quickly withdrawn, and turned with his brows raised curiously.

He was almost surprised to find that it was Yeosang who stood behind him, looking distinctly uncomfortable despite his stern, level gaze. He reminded Wooyoung of a frozen prey animal, debating the relative merits of making an escape while there was still time.

Of course, Wooyoung refused to give him the opportunity. It was a rare enough moment for Yeosang to seek him out first rather than the other way around, and he wasn’t about to let it pass by.

“Yeosang!” he cried, with true delight in his voice that he didn’t even have to feign. Latching on to Yeosang’s arm, he pulled the other out of the room, hoping that being somewhere quieter would leach the stressed stiffness from his frame. They rounded two corners before finding an empty corridor, and Wooyoung immediately whirled about to face Yeosang, who seemed, as always, mildly overwhelmed by Wooyoung’s aggressive enthusiasm.

“So? Did you need something?” Wooyoung demanded excitedly.

“I –” Yeosang hesitated for a moment, his eyes dropping to his feet for a moment before he lifted them again, not quite as level with Wooyoung’s as before but peeking up from beneath his lashes. “I just wanted to ask if you had some time to run through some of the dances with me. There’s the upcoming evaluation, so…” He trailed off with an uneasy swallow, and Wooyoung’s lips pulled into a sympathetic smile.

Of course Yeosang would be on edge asking something like this, from someone who was technically his direct competition. This wouldn’t be Yeosang’s first evaluation though, and Wooyoung wondered if his previous one hadn’t gone so well.

Shrugging nonchalantly, not wanting to spook the quiet boy any more than he already was, Wooyoung cleared his throat. “Sure, why not? I need the practice too anyway,” he said, his smile already widening into a grin of anticipation.

“Wanna start today?” he offered, and he watched as Yeosang’s expression lightened minutely with relief, his cheeks lifting as he smiled.

It was just half an hour later, midway through their very first session, that Yeosang began insisting heatedly, “You have to be _strict_ , Wooyoung. Just tell me everything I do wrong. How else can I get better?” His hair was damp with sweat, clumps of it sticking messily to his forehead as he fixed a glare that was halfway between pleading and aggressive on Wooyoung.

Wooyoung stared at Yeosang, looking so pale and uncertain beneath the washout of the bright lights overhead, and remembered how he himself had almost passed out from terror before his evaluations for the first couple of months.

“Okay,” he said at last, pressing his lips together as he looked Yeosang up and down, wondering where exactly he should start. Truthfully, Yeosang was just… _decent_. He had something of a dance background, he supposed, but he wasn’t particularly skilled. He certainly wasn’t Wooyoung, who had lived and breathed dance for as long as he could remember. What Yeosang _did_ have was a sense of rhythm and some flexibility, so Wooyoung figured he could at least work with that.

It was all up to him, he realised. If he wasn’t strict, if he let Yeosang walk out of the studio thinking that he was dancing just fine, it would only be a matter of time before he flunked the monthly evaluations and really got kicked out of the company. He couldn’t let that happen, not on his watch.

“We’ll practice every day,” Wooyoung decided at last, feeling the weight of responsibility settle on his shoulders. “At least an hour after lessons, maybe two, unless we have homework.” He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment before sighing and motioning for Yeosang to get into position again.

If there was one thing that could be said about Yeosang though, it was that he took dancing seriously. Sometimes, Wooyoung would use the entire hour to perfect a single move, the two of them repeating that one motion dozens and dozens of times, but he never uttered a single word of complaint. Wooyoung appreciated that about him, but he also found the fixed look on Yeosang’s face as he danced utterly hilarious.

“You look like you’re about to snap and murder someone at any second,” Wooyoung groaned, sweeping his bangs out of his eyes and squinting over at Yeosang’s reflection, looking back at him with that laser-eyed stare. “This is a bright song. You have to match the mood – you have to make them _like_ you. They have to feel happiness when they see you dancing to this song. Do you even know how to smile, Kang Yeosang?”

He grinned, sticking his tongue out when Yeosang crinkled his nose at him in annoyance.

It was increasingly easy to joke around with Yeosang these days. They were always returning to the dorm together, sweaty and exhausted from dance as they dug through the cupboards for ramen and took turns to put the kettle on. More often than not, Yeosang would end up sitting at the dining table with Wooyoung, their heads bent close together, helping him with schoolwork that would otherwise remain unfinished. Yeosang was, Wooyoung had discovered, a veritable math genius compared to himself and an absolute godsend.

It had turned into a familiar comfort to see Yeosang roll his eyes at him in exasperation exactly as he was doing right then, his voice low with vexation as he grumbled, “I can smile. I was literally in cheer. Any cheerleader could out-smile you any day.”

Wooyoung blinked, his eyebrows disappearing right into his hair. “You were a cheerleader?” he sputtered, and the strange image of Yeosang waving pom-poms around abruptly appeared in his mind.

Yeosang shrugged, and Wooyoung realised that his ears were starting to tint red with embarrassment. It was strangely adorable, considering how hard Yeosang worked to maintain the illusion that nothing ever got to him.

“Fine,” he said airily, moving over to the computer and plopping himself down onto the chair in front of it. “You’d better do it again with a smile then. I’m tired of looking at your grumpy face every day.”

Yeosang snorted, but he did smile when the music started. It was a shockingly bright smile, one that Wooyoung had never seen on Yeosang’s face before – a little stiff around the edges, but a performance-perfect expression all the same. It was almost creepy, like he was suddenly watching a completely different person dance.

The change, when it came, was so gradual that Wooyoung almost missed it. He was focused on Yeosang’s moves, his eyes narrowed with concentration as his gaze flicked from arms to legs and back again. The song was already halfway over by the time his attention returned to Yeosang’s face, still smiling but more loosely now, more relaxed, as if he had forgotten to manage his expression and was simply smiling for love of what he was doing.

It was at that moment that Wooyoung realised, with a jolt of shock that curled deep in the pit of his stomach, how very beautiful Kang Yeosang was. He had known it from the day they’d met, of course, but at some point the fact that Yeosang was conventionally attractive had somehow ceased to matter to him. Maybe it had never really mattered in the first place. He had gotten so used to looking past that pretty face to the caustic yet gentle soul beneath that his eyes often failed to register its delicate perfection.

Now, seeing the flushed glow staining Yeosang’s cheeks as he flowed seamlessly from one move to the next with practiced self-assurance, Wooyoung felt something in his chest give an odd lurch. He could hardly reconcile this Yeosang with the one who had stumbled haltingly through his moves mere weeks ago, darting anxious glances Wooyoung’s way every three seconds. This Yeosang had dragged himself up from merely mediocre to almost good through sheer dogged determination, and he wasn’t anywhere near done yet.

Was there anything more attractive to a dancer than seeing someone else share in his passion? Wooyoung thought not.

Perhaps that was the moment Wooyoung fell for Yeosang – that one moment where he felt his heart align perfectly with Yeosang’s untroubled smile, that one second where he recognised with perfect clarity the way dance transported Yeosang elsewhere for those few glorious minutes like nothing else could. That was the moment his very inconvenient crush hit him like a runaway train and simply continued to run him over without mercy for the next few years.

One evaluation passed, and then two, and gradually their nightly practices became something more of a tradition than actual necessity. Sometimes they simply collapsed onto the floor after the hours were up, laying side-by-side as they heaved for breath, just close enough to touch. Sometimes Yeosang would turn his head to look at Wooyoung and laugh softly, deep in his chest, a noise of pure exhilaration. And always, every minute of every day, Wooyoung found himself dazzled by Yeosang’s very existence.

The deep creases of his eyelids, the slender length of his fingers, the softness of his cheeks when he truly smiled.

Wooyoung didn’t even know how he had gotten there. One moment he had been ragging on Yeosang for not knowing how to smile, and the next he had somehow come to the realisation that Kang Yeosang was indubitably the best thing that had happened to him since the invention of bulgogi.

Maybe Yeosang smiled more with him than with the other trainees. Maybe Yeosang looked at him and saw the one constant he could count on in this ever-changing environment they operated in. Wooyoung didn’t know, and he didn’t dare to hope. Their small, tenderly nurtured dreams of debut were infinitely more important than one teenage boy’s aching heart.

This was enough, he told himself, when Yeosang shoved him light-heartedly away from his chicken with a disapproving wrinkle of his nose. It was enough when he looked over the side of his bed to where a pyjamas-clad Yeosang sat on the edge of his own, and he mouthed _goodnight_ when their eyes met. It was enough when they gathered for classes and Yeosang slipped into the seat beside his without being asked.

This was so much more than enough.


	2. Chapter 2

Wooyoung always came out from the monthly evaluations feeling slightly battered.

It was also usually accompanied by a competitive sort of rejuvenation that only the unfiltered honesty of the assessors’ feedback could awaken.

_Shaky vocals today – have you been practicing? Your dance was better last month. Sloppiness does not equate to expressiveness. We’re only harsh on you because you have so much potential, Wooyoung._

Did they think they’d seen the best he’d yet to offer? Ha, he’d love to see their faces next month.

He was sprawled across the couch with his latest dance evaluation playing on his phone when Yeosang walked in through the front door, wearing the same mildly traumatised expression he always had after each month’s evaluation. Grabbing one of the cushions he was laying on, Wooyoung nailed Yeosang in the head with it when it looked like the other boy was about to walk right past him to the bedroom.

“I – _what_ – Jung Wooyoung!” Yeosang hissed, considerate as always, lest he startle anyone else in the apartment by shrieking offendedly exactly the way Wooyoung would have if their roles had been reversed. He shook his head, blinking and tousled from the unexpected attack. Stalking over, he slapped the cushion into a cackling Wooyoung’s face, before shoving his legs aside to make space on the couch.

Pausing his video, Wooyoung pushed himself upright before slumping limply in the opposite direction against Yeosang. “How was it?” he asked, his words emerging muffled from the way his cheek was mushed uncomfortably against a rather bony shoulder.

Yeosang shifted with a noise that seemed to suggest annoyance, pulling away so that Wooyoung tumbled all the way down onto his lap instead. “Not awful,” he said shortly, but the brush of his fingers against Wooyoung’s bare arm was gentle.

Twisting to squint up at Yeosang’s expression from below, his neck pillowed against the curve of Yeosang’s thigh, Wooyoung gave a soft hum of acknowledgement. “That’s good,” he said simply. Yeosang was always a little off-kilter after evaluations. _You’ve been practicing hard. You’re talented. You matter._ Wooyoung had said those truths to Yeosang countless times in a matter of months, but sometimes even he could tell when no words were needed.

He pulled Yeosang’s hand to rest on his chest, enveloping it with both of his own, and watched the tired droop of Yeosang’s eyelids, the quiet parting of his lips as he exhaled. He looked brittle, worn thin with stress and overthinking. That was the problem with Yeosang, Wooyoung thought, that he kept all his thoughts locked up inside his head with nowhere to go.

He gave himself another five minutes, just to relish the quiet heaviness of the moment, and then he squeezed Yeosang’s hand lightly. “You should go shower,” he murmured. “Then we can go nap or gather the others to watch a movie or something.”

Yeosang cracked an eyelid open and peeked down at him. “You can go first,” he said, and he began to bounce his knee insistently until Wooyoung whined in protest. He got up anyway, rubbing at the back of his head and pouting furiously until Yeosang aimed an impatient kick at his shins.

When he got out of the bathroom, the couch was full but Yeosang was nowhere in sight. Yeonjun beckoned him over from where he and a few other trainees were gathered around the TV watching a live music show, but Wooyoung only blew a dramatic air kiss their way before heading for the bedroom.

Yeosang was seated on the floor by his bed, a worn notebook set against his knees and a pencil in his hand. His head was lowered in concentration, but he jerked slightly when Wooyoung pushed the door open, his left hand whipping the notebook out of sight without thought. It was only when he looked up and met Wooyoung’s curious gaze that the veiled wariness in his eyes dissolved into a tired sort of welcome. He shifted, making space beside him, and returned the notebook to its former position, catching his bottom lip between his teeth as he stared at the page.

Taking a seat gingerly on the floor, Wooyoung leaned over to rest his chin on Yeosang’s shoulder, making the other squirm when he dug his chin into the hollow of his collarbone. “What are you drawing?” he asked, peering down at the still-empty page.

He had never expected Yeosang of all people to be a doodler, but for someone who did reasonably well in school, Yeosang certainly spent a lot of time scribbling silly little animals and figures in the margins of his books. Of course, he was disproportionately shy about the whole thing, but Wooyoung genuinely and whole-heartedly loved all of Yeosang’s doodles. They were bouncy, happy little things, their emotions writ clear on their smiling faces, and Wooyoung hoped that they reflected their artist’s inner feelings as well.

“Mm, you,” Yeosang replied after a moment of thought. Wooyoung grinned as he put pencil to paper, quickly sketching out a round-faced, open-mouthed boy with a tiny dot beneath his left eye and another on his bottom lip. There was a little speech bubble beside him, and Yeosang quickly wrote a large, messy _I’m annoying!!!!_ in it before Wooyoung could screech and tear the pencil away from him.

“Kang Yeosang!” he whined, leaning away so he could slap the other boy on the shoulder. Yeosang let himself fall to the floor away from Wooyoung, hands covering his mouth as his shoulders shook from the force of his amusement. Glaring even as he laughed, Wooyoung leaped bodily onto Yeosang, fingers digging into the other’s ribs as Yeosang writhed and squeaked his surrender.

“That’s cheating,” Yeosang panted, his hair sticking up haphazardly in every direction, his smile wide and unhidden for once. “No tickling.” He closed his eyes, seemingly exhausted, his chest rising and falling rapidly with every breath. With a satisfied huff, Wooyoung pushed himself to his feet and bent to pick up the abandoned notebook, still open to the little doodle of him. One corner of his lips quirked up at the sight.

“Can I keep this?” he asked, waving the page at Yeosang, who immediately opened his eyes and sat up with his brows furrowed.

“You are _not_ tearing pages out of my book,” he said flatly, and he endured Wooyoung’s puppy-eyed pout for only a second more before sighing, “But I’ll draw you another one somewhere else.”

Wooyoung beamed, thrusting the notebook back into Yeosang’s hands. “Good,” he said, pleased. “Now go and shower before someone else decides to use the bathroom, you sloth.”

He shrieked when Yeosang threw a dirty sock at him.

Just like that, the months rolled by – Wooyoung’s first year as a trainee passed, and not long after the new year came and went as well. He often brought Yeosang home with him whenever they got a day or two off, and it was well worth it to see Yeosang’s cheeks dust pink every time Wooyoung’s mother cooed over him. He found more joy in his burgeoning friendship with Yeosang than anything else, and the closer they got, the more Yeosang opened up like a tentatively-blooming flower, the more content Wooyoung felt with everything he had in the here and now.

A small crowd of trainees came and went, some leaving for greener pastures, others with the spark they had arrived with extinguished. One day, Wooyoung looked around him and realised with vague surprise that all of a sudden, he and Yeonjun had somehow become the senior trainees that the newbies looked to for guidance. It felt a little like having a birthday pass him by – he felt just as he always had, fresh and uncertain and eager, and yet he also knew on some level that he was no longer quite the same as he had been before.

It was mid-spring when the news came – the company was finally looking at forming a new boy group, most likely in the next couple of years. It went without saying that the monthly evaluations would now be more stressful than ever, but all Wooyoung felt was the heady rush of adrenaline through his veins. He looked around, past the two newest boys sitting wide-eyed and intimidated in the corner, to where Yeosang was staring at the speaking staff member with a gobsmacked expression on his face.

Wooyoung knew exactly how he was feeling. He couldn’t quite believe this was real either. All the days they had spent struggling not to doze off in school, all the afternoons they had danced until they could barely limp out of the studio, all the nights they had spent crying out of homesickness and despair – every single moment had led up to this, to the absolute certainty and utter triumph of knowing there was a chance of debuting after all.

Of course they would. He, Yeonjun, Yeosang – they had survived everything that had been thrown at them and more. If not them, then who? Even at eighteen, failure was not a word that had yet entered Jung Wooyoung’s vocabulary.

He slipped his arm into Yeosang’s as they filed out of the room, the chatter of excited teenage boys already beginning to rise even before the door clicked shut behind them.

“Let’s debut together,” he said, softly enough that only Yeosang could hear, an echo of the very first day they had met. Yeosang looked sideways at him, his eyes glistening brighter and more hopeful than Wooyoung could ever remember seeing. His mouth opened as if to say something, but the words seemed to catch in his throat, and in the end he only gave a tremulous smile and nodded.

For the first time, Yeosang looked like he might finally be starting to believe all the compliments that Wooyoung had been shoving down his throat from the very beginning, and Wooyoung was pretty sure that he would do anything to keep it that way.

If the announcement breathed new life back into them all, it was Yeosang who seemed the most changed in Wooyoung’s eyes. There was a fresh spark to his eyes now, a driven determination powering him even beyond the hard work he had put in before. He had bloomed slowly with the support of Wooyoung’s friendship, but with the steady self-assurance he seemed to have dug out from somewhere previously undiscovered, he now positively blossomed.

These days, it was Yeosang who popped into the studio for their nightly dance practices with new stories of his language lessons with the two newbies, Taehyun and Soobin. Once, he brought up and laughed about the way his voice had cracked during vocal practice earlier in the day. He smiled now whenever Wooyoung prattled on about their debut, soft and attentive all at the same time, where before there had always been an air of patient cynicism shrouding him.

Like Wooyoung, Yeosang had chosen to believe.

It was only after the third evaluation since the announcement that things started to go wrong.

This time, Wooyoung was one of the last to be evaluated. _Promising_ , he had been told, and he was bursting to scream about it in the privacy of their room, but when he pushed the door open, Yeosang was a motionless lump beneath his sheets in the middle of the afternoon. Hesitating, Wooyoung raised his brows at Taehyun, who shrugged from where he was seated in his bed above Yeosang’s.

 _Out_ , he mouthed at Taehyun, who made a show of grumbling silently even as he climbed down to the ground. Wooyoung grinned crookedly at him and slapped him on the shoulder as he left.

“Yeosang,” he cooed in the baby voice that he was well aware Yeosang hated so much, as he ducked down to crawl into the narrow bed, throwing his arm atop the uneven pile of blankets. Slowly, he began to peel back large swathes of the covers until he uncovered Yeosang’s face, his eyes wet and red-rimmed even in the dim lighting.

The smile dropping off his face in an instant, Wooyoung whispered, “What happened?” He wriggled in under the blankets and felt Yeosang shift, turning onto his side so that he was facing Wooyoung.

“Nothing,” he said, but his voice was rough and shaky. “I didn’t do well, that’s all. They said some things that I didn’t want to hear.” He moved forward, tucking his head against Wooyoung’s chest, and let out a long breath. Wooyoung closed his eyes, fighting his own tears at the sight of Yeosang’s. It had always been Wooyoung who cried about missing his family in the dead of night, and about the turns he had failed to execute perfectly while dancing, while Yeosang placed an arm awkwardly about his shoulders or squeezed his hand sympathetically.

Yeosang had never been a crier, even though his family was the one that lived more than three hours away from Seoul, and he had been yelled at more than once for messing up supposedly simple dance moves. He sometimes withdrew and became moody, but his tears were a rare sight. Seeing them now, after an evaluation they had been through a dozen times, was nothing short of terrifying.

Biting his lip, Wooyoung patted gingerly at Yeosang’s back, feeling useless. What could he tell Yeosang that he hadn’t already told him before?

“They just want you to get better,” he said at last. “You know how it is. They’re pushing us up to debut level. It’s good that they’re paying close attention to your skills. It means you’re in the running. We’re going to debut together, Yeosang. We really are. I know it.”

“Please shut up,” Yeosang said suddenly, and Wooyoung froze, completely taken aback. The words were uttered quietly, but Wooyoung would have taken anger anytime over the deadened, dejected tone that emerged from Yeosang’s lips. Slowly, he tightened his one-armed hug and pressed his chin more firmly against the top of Yeosang’s head. He didn’t know what else to do.

Things were odd after that.

It felt like Yeosang began to drift away, not just from Wooyoung but from everyone else as well. He still attended lessons, and he continued to dance with Wooyoung nightly without fail, but he was more reticent than ever. It was a struggle for Wooyoung to even pull the details of what he’d had for lunch out of him. More and more often he wasn’t all there, lost in thought until Wooyoung shook his shoulder to get his attention.

And yet through it all, as Yeosang began to detach himself emotionally from Wooyoung, physically they were closer than ever. Suddenly he was the one holding on to Wooyoung as they walked, just a loose curl of his fingers around Wooyoung’s wrist rather than the aggressive body-to-body press that Wooyoung favoured. Suddenly he was the one shifting to make space for Wooyoung in his bed if Wooyoung gave even the slightest indication of leaping in uninvited, rather than grumbling and wielding his pillow threateningly until the unwelcome intruder escaped back to his own sanctuary.

Wooyoung didn’t understand any of it, and that frightened him.

“You know you can talk to me, right?” he said over and over, desperate and pleading, but still he felt as if Yeosang continued to slip further and further out of reach.

One day, just a week or so before the next monthly evaluation, Yeosang disappeared for an entire day. None of the company instructors questioned his absence, and he returned in time to meet Wooyoung at the practice room in the evening. He stepped in looking strangely guilty, his hair freshly washed like he had just come from the dorm.

Wooyoung looked up from where he had been sitting on the floor with his back against the mirror, waiting. “Where did you go today?” he asked, and he hated how small his voice sounded, how afraid he was of Yeosang’s answer even though he didn’t have a clue what to expect.

Yeosang walked slowly over, almost dragging his feet, and Wooyoung stood to meet him halfway, wringing his hands anxiously until Yeosang caught them in a firm grip.

“Wooyoung,” he said quietly, throat convulsing as he swallowed. “Wooyoung…I went for an audition today.”

“What?” he said blankly, stepping back, but Yeosang stepped forward with him, like some horrible parody of a waltz. Some part of Wooyoung that was miraculously still functioning over the shock understood what those words meant, but he just couldn’t understand _why_.

“Wooyoung,” Yeosang said again, as if saying his name repeatedly in that soft, heartbroken way would make things any better. “The last evaluation, they told me I wasn’t going to debut in their next group. They said they didn’t want to lie to me, and I wasn’t in the line-up. They said I might be in the _next_ one after that, but – I don’t think I can wait that long. You understand, right?”

Wooyoung shook his head, trying to pull away, but Yeosang refused to let go. “They said you weren’t in the line-up? They said that? _Exactly_ that?” He just couldn’t wrap his mind around it. “But I – we…” He trailed off, his thoughts too tangled to put into words, and finally Yeosang released him so that Wooyoung could wipe at the tears beginning to streak his cheeks.

“But what about me?” he asked, suddenly lost. “If you leave, then what am I supposed to do?” Wooyoung shook his head again, feeling the urge to scream building in his throat.

“Wooyoung, you’re going to debut and you’re going to be _amazing_. I know it.” Yeosang’s gaze was steady, his smile faint but genuine. “I want to stand on the same stage as you one day. I want it so much, but I can’t do that if I stay here. You can’t keep waiting for me.”

Wooyoung could hardly breathe. “I’m not –” he stammered, without really knowing what he was going to say. “Yeosang –” His words were cut off when he was pulled abruptly into a hug, Yeosang’s arms wrapping tight around his waist, his chin resting lightly against Wooyoung’s shoulder. Wooyoung shuddered, a huge sob forcing its way out of him at the sudden contact, and he buried his face against the fabric of Yeosang’s hoodie, hiccupping through his tears.

It had never felt like waiting, he wanted to scream. He had never for a single moment thought that Yeosang was holding him back. If anything, Yeosang had made him stronger, more patient, more thoughtful. He couldn’t bear for Yeosang to walk away believing anything of the sort, but the words wouldn’t come, and he cried all his frustration and fear into Yeosang’s increasingly damp pullover instead.

In this place that wasn’t home, Wooyoung had found a shelter in Yeosang, and he felt suddenly unmoored, the very thought of going on alone making him falter. He hadn’t had to manage without Yeosang in a long time; he thought maybe he had forgotten how to.

“Wooyoung,” Yeosang murmured, his voice low and soothing by Wooyoung’s ear. “We’ve always had the same goal, and we’re both going to achieve it. Nothing’s changed. I just – you’d better not forget me once you’re famous.” For the first time, Yeosang’s voice trembled even as he chuckled, the sound sharp with impending loss, and Wooyoung realised that he wasn’t the only one hurting.

He had grown used to being the one comforting Yeosang. He had turned himself into Yeosang’s personal cheerleader, cuddling him after evaluations and propping him up each time he floundered, mired in self-doubt. He had thought himself strong, but never before had he truly registered the sheer amount of resilience Yeosang possessed. Wooyoung pressed forward because he truly believed success was inevitable; Yeosang pushed himself onward in spite of his insecurities, because he believed in at least giving himself a fighting chance.

Now, clinging on to Yeosang, his deceptively slender frame taut with tension as he fought to support Wooyoung’s weight, Wooyoung only wished that this chance didn’t involve leaving.

For the longest time, Wooyoung had thought that they would both do anything it took to debut. He had thought that their dreams were bigger than each other. Now, he realised that it was just Yeosang who had dreams bigger than Wooyoung. For him, no dream would ever be bigger than Yeosang.

He wanted to say _please don’t go_ , but he loved Yeosang too much to do that to him.

Instead, he choked out the words as he wept, “We were supposed to debut _together_.” It was as close to an apology as he could manage right then, and from the way Yeosang’s breathing hitched just a little, his fingers curling tighter into the back of Wooyoung’s shirt, he knew that Yeosang understood.

For the first time in his life, Jung Wooyoung felt like he had failed.

After that day, Yeosang went for another two auditions, and by the following month, he had received a concrete offer. The company was being supportive, he told Wooyoung. They had told him they wished him great success in his new company.

Wooyoung didn’t even try to hold back his snort. “Whatever,” he muttered, nestling further into Yeosang’s side in annoyance. “It’s not like you’ve even accepted the offer yet.” It was an open secret by now that Yeosang was searching for a new company, and more often than not he and Wooyoung were left alone in what little free time they had, the other trainees respecting their bond in the only way they knew how.

“I will, though,” Yeosang said, perfectly matter-of-fact, and Wooyoung’s lips thinned as he stared hard at the threadbare fabric of Yeosang’s shirt before his eyes. He was quite tired of crying every time he thought about having to wake up one day without Yeosang in the same room as him.

 _When?_ he wanted to ask, but he couldn’t make the question leave his lips, and before he could force it out into the open Yeosang was speaking again, his breaths ruffling the hair on Wooyoung’s crown.

“Do you think –” he started, before seeming to think better of it, but Wooyoung nudged him in the side and he took a breath before starting again. “Do you think I’ll ever debut? Truthfully?”

Frowning at the absurdity of the question, Wooyoung pushed himself upright and grabbed Yeosang by the shoulders, ignoring the shock that flitted across the other’s face. “Kang Yeosang,” he said sternly, almost angrily. “Remember that Bighit accepted you when you were just some stupid cheerleader who could hardly dance. Now this new company’s accepted you too. There’s something _special_ about you. I know I tell you this all the time, but it’s true. You are so, so special.”

Something in him twinged, a phantom pain, like Yeosang had already gone and taken part of Wooyoung’s heart with him. “I believe in you, okay?” he said, shaking Yeosang for added emphasis. “Don’t ever give up. You’re gonna be a star.”

It was the bittersweet tang of Yeosang’s smile that made him crumble, and he lunged into Yeosang’s arms, tumbling them both backwards until he was laying bodily on Yeosang, looking at him with tears dripping down his face.

“I can’t stop crying and it’s all your fault,” he complained, and Yeosang huffed out a laugh. He was dry-eyed in the face of Wooyoung’s tears, but his bottom lip was quivering ever so slightly as they stared at each other. In the end, it was Yeosang who wrapped his arms around Wooyoung and pulled him down so that they were cheek-to-cheek, pressed together so tightly it felt like Yeosang was trying to absorb him right into his bloodstream.

Parting was always particularly difficult at eighteen.

That night, Wooyoung searched Naver for KQ Entertainment and trawled slowly through its website, the light of the screen shining into his squinting eyes as resentment burned in his veins. There were no upcoming audition dates listed, just an application form to be filled in and emailed with a couple of photos. It really wasn’t anything difficult at all.

He could hear the familiar cadence of Yeosang’s breathing in the opposite bunk, and the sound soothed him. He downloaded the application form and scrolled through it, but it was just a standard form, nothing to set it apart from all the others Wooyoung had filled in before. It all felt like such a long time ago now – it was almost unthinkable that he had been sleeping in this bed for two whole years.

He wondered what the company would say if he told them that he had applied to KQ.

Until that moment, the idea was not something that had actually crossed Wooyoung’s mind. It was utterly ridiculous, and especially so for someone like him, who really and truly did have a somewhat decent chance of debuting – but now that it had occurred to him, he wondered how he could ever have overlooked it.

Wooyoung knew his own strengths, and he knew he was a decent enough all-rounder. There was absolutely no reason for KQ to reject him if he sent in an application. Besides, small as they were, he doubted they were drowning in applicants. He pursed his lips and set his phone down, staring out into the darkness even after the screen faded to black.

A week later, Yeosang was gone.

Wooyoung emailed his application form to KQ three days after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a crime that there aren't more canon woosang fics (´д｀)


	3. Chapter 3

After all the effort he had put into it, leaving Bighit turned out to be far more difficult than Wooyoung had anticipated.

The day he had gotten a response to his email inviting him to an audition with KQ, he had scrambled helter-skelter through the halls to ask for the day off. It was his little brother’s birthday that week and his family wanted to bring them out for the day, he lied with aplomb, his best hopeful smile on his face even as he mentally apologised to Kyungmin for dragging him into this deception.

He almost told Yeosang about it, his fingers hovering above the ‘send’ button before he erased the entire message with a sigh. He supposed it would be better to tell Yeosang the good news only when he had gotten in, or maybe Wooyoung would just surprise him the day he turned up at the company.

It wasn’t only about the false hope. The rational part of Wooyoung’s brain could already hear the disappointment in Yeosang’s voice the moment he found out about what he was doing, the start of the ‘stop sacrificing your chances for me’ spiel. He would never believe that this wasn’t a sacrifice for Wooyoung, that this was simply how the law of gravity worked for him where Yeosang was concerned.

Was it so wrong, Wooyoung wondered, to want to stay with someone who made him happy? Who was a home and a friend and someone with more love to give than he could ever ask for?

He texted Yeosang as often as he could, when he woke up in the morning before leaving for school, and late at night when he returned to the dorm. Most of the time, one of them would end up falling asleep halfway through the conversation – usually Wooyoung, but occasionally Yeosang. He liked to think that it meant Yeosang missed him too, that he stayed up staring that little _typing…_ notification on his screen through bleary eyes in the same way Wooyoung did.

It wasn’t much, but it was something.

Mostly he tried not to think about Yeosang at all during training. Whether he would be staying or leaving, Wooyoung was still going to be an idol trainee, and he wasn’t about to neglect his painstakingly honed skills at this stage. He drifted back into the habit of practicing with Yeonjun instead, because Yeonjun was so annoyingly proficient at everything that he never failed to get Wooyoung fired up with competitive intensity.

He tried to keep up the habit of putting in an extra hour for dance every evening, but it was lonely to have the music blasting around a single person in the studio. Sometimes he invited the other trainees to join him, but they never came by consistently, every single day. He no longer found torn scraps of paper in his pockets or under his phone, with a cheerful little doodle message like _You did well today_ or _Good luck for tomorrow!!!!_ or even a simple _Hi Wooyoung_ , all the things that Yeosang wanted to say but never could out loud.

It was strange seeing Yeosang’s bed remain empty, and it was strange to suddenly have to find a different partner during language lessons, but it was a strangeness that Wooyoung gradually and unknowingly became accustomed to. It was easy enough to moan about evaluations with Soobin instead of Yeosang, and just as easy to argue heatedly about what movie to watch next with Taehyun, when once upon a time Yeosang would simply have relented and let Wooyoung have his way.

It was only on the rare days when his back hurt so badly he could hardly bend to sit, and in the deafening silence of night when he found himself wondering if pure effort truly was enough to make it through, that Wooyoung longed for Yeosang’s presence. It just wasn’t the same through text. Yeosang couldn’t tuck him in with a hot water bottle pressed to his back through a message, and reading his level-headed, cool reply on an unfeeling screen couldn’t compare to hearing his calming voice as his long fingers threaded repeatedly through Wooyoung’s hair.

It was to Yeosang that Wooyoung’s thoughts always turned when things mattered the most, not because he was a cute boy that Wooyoung had a crush on, but because first and foremost, Kang Yeosang was his best friend.

It was late November by the time KQ offered him a trainee contract, just a few days before his birthday, and Wooyoung sat on it for almost a week, stewing in indecision. It had been more than a month since he had last seen Yeosang, and he had somehow made it through each day unscathed. He could keep going, he thought, and just hope that they both debuted and saw each other around at music shows, or found the time to grab a meal together more than twice a year.

He could let them drift apart in the way so many friends did, and he could learn to live without Yeosang, but he didn’t know if he _wanted_ to.

He curled up in the corner of one of the smaller practice rooms one evening and listened to the sound of his heart pounding in his ears, almost drowning out the tinny ringing of the phone against his cheek. It took Yeosang an abominably long time to pick up.

“Wooyoung? What happened?” was the first thing he uttered without even a greeting, and Wooyoung could have broken down right then and there from the sheer amount of concern radiating from Yeosang’s voice. It suddenly felt like an age since Wooyoung had last seen or heard him.

“Nothing,” he said hastily, wishing he could reach through the phone and force Yeosang not to worry. “I just wanted to talk. I miss you.”

“Ah, really?” He could hear Yeosang’s smile through the phone, and he couldn’t help responding in kind, the corners of his lips tugging upwards unbidden.

“You have to say it back,” he insisted, feigning offence as Yeosang started to chuckle.

“Okay,” Yeosang said at last, and his voice softened. “I missed you too.”

“Okay,” Wooyoung echoed, wanting to savour the moment, this quietude where he still had the honesty of Yeosang’s emotions in his ears.

He heard the other boy blow out a sigh, and then he asked, “Are you okay?”

_I just miss you_ , Wooyoung thought. He hadn’t even realised how much, like the part of him Yeosang had torn out with his departure had scabbed over with time, sore but functional, but hearing his voice now had made it bleed all over again.

“Tell me what it’s like over there,” he said instead, and Yeosang was kind enough not to call him out on his unsubtle evasion. He told Wooyoung about the six other boys he now lived with – about what amazing dancers Yunho and Mingi were, and how kind Seonghwa was, how hard San practiced every day, how unbelievable it was to hear Jongho sing.

“Hongjoong hyung is kind of our leader, unofficially. He writes songs and composes, and does everything really,” Yeosang said, and it was hard not to be jealous at the sound of genuine happiness in his voice that Wooyoung had no part of. He wanted to be there too, if only to see just how good Yunho and Mingi really were, that Yeosang would call them amazing even after seeing Wooyoung dance.

“Well, he sounds cool,” he said reluctantly, and he thought he heard Yeosang hold back a chuckle.

“He is,” Yeosang agreed, and then he added, perfectly slyly, “but he wouldn’t like you.”

Wooyoung shrieked at that, scandalised, but his mood was something close to buoyant when Yeosang finally admitted that Wooyoung had called him in the middle of dinner, and that he had to go. Before he could second-guess himself, he dialled another number, this one even dearer to his heart than Yeosang’s.

“I’m going to change companies,” he blurted out the moment he heard the little click of the call connecting, and felt relief at finally saying it out loud, at making what was hidden in his heart real.

His mother asked him twice if he was sure, _completely_ sure, and then called him her silly little boy, and the tenderness in her voice was enough of a blessing for Wooyoung.

The company wasn’t happy when he informed them of his decision, but the part of Wooyoung that housed his sensitive pride felt like they could have tried harder to get him to stay. Hadn’t they wanted him in their debut team? He supposed they just weren’t that keen on a trainee whose commitment had come into question, no matter how talented.

Packing his suitcase was indefinably odd. He kept finding his things where they weren’t supposed to be, like the charging cable that he’d lent to Yeonjun practically a year ago and never got back until Yeonjun showed up a week before his last day with a sheepish grin on his face – but he also found things that weren’t even his among his own items, like a worn practice shirt he’d snagged from another trainee buried in his wardrobe, except that trainee had already left the company even before Yeosang’s departure.

He had never realised just how much the dorm had become his second home over the years, nor the way its inhabitants had somehow twined themselves into his life almost inextricably.

“I’m really going to miss you guys,” he wailed on his last day, stumbling backwards as all the other trainees leapt onto him in an over-enthusiastic puppy pile. Wooyoung closed his eyes and soaked in the warmth and the babble amidst the roughhousing, tucking the moment away in his memories, right beside Yeosang’s lightning-quick, blink-and-you-miss-it smiles. These were the memories he hoped would last, for as long as he could hold on to them.

He took a couple of weeks off after leaving, passing the holiday season with his family, and it was another new year when he walked up to the KQ Entertainment building for the first time since his auditions. It was the middle of the day, but it reminded him of how he and Yeosang had met on that one night, except this time Wooyoung was the one dragging his suitcase along to the practice room with him.

He could feel the faint thump of someone jumping reverberating through the floor even as he approached the closed door of the unfamiliar dance studio, along with the quick beat of a track that was suddenly paused, before soft chatter started up, and then laughter. A quiver of nerves ran through him, somehow more overwhelming than the general restlessness that always seized him before a performance.

Pressing his lips together, Wooyoung shut his eyes for a moment, gathering himself in the way he had seen Yeosang do so many times before. Shaking himself and pasting a smile on his face, he pushed the door of the practice room open, refusing to be cowed by the unknown faces that began to turn his way. It had been a long time since he had been the newbie anywhere, and for just a moment his usual bravado deserted him, leaving him standing speechlessly by the entrance.

“Hi,” someone said suddenly, cutting through the awkward silence, and Wooyoung’s eyes flickered to the boy who had leapt to his feet, all bright eyes above an even brighter smile. “You must be the new trainee.”

Wooyoung was just about to bow and introduce himself when a sudden movement made him pause.

It was Yeosang, pushing past another boy at least half a head taller than him, the expression on his face so ghastly that for a bare moment Wooyoung thought that he had made a terrible mistake, that Yeosang wasn’t pleased to see him again after all. But the next moment, Yeosang’s face came alight with disbelieving delight, the resonance of undiluted happiness clearly audible to everyone present as he uttered Wooyoung’s name, low and heartfelt.

The next thing he knew, Yeosang was running towards him, just three quick steps before Wooyoung caught him by the waist and lifted him for the half second he could manage, before thumping him back down with a grunt.

“Wooyoung,” Yeosang repeated dumbly, his fingers lacing together loosely against the nape of Wooyoung’s neck. He was staring with his mouth half-open, his usual composure shattered as his glistening eyes met Wooyoung’s. He seemed almost afraid to blink, as if he might awaken to find Wooyoung gone from his sight.

“I told you we were going to debut together,” Wooyoung said quietly, pulling Yeosang so close that their foreheads were touching. “If I succeed, I’m gonna succeed with you. If we fail, then we’ll fail together too.” Yeosang closed his eyes and swallowed hard, and then he nodded just once, forcefully, his face crumpling with emotion. Ducking his head, he pressed his face to Wooyoung’s shoulder, breathing slow and deep in an effort to calm himself, although his shoulders were shaking with the effort.

Slowly, the other boys began to crowd around, their expressions bright with a mixture of surprise and curiosity. All of them were staring, one of them going so far as to give Yeosang a tentative pat on the back. Wooyoung couldn’t help feeling slightly cornered, and he found himself twisting Yeosang’s shirt between his fingers nervously.

“So _you’re_ Wooyoung,” one of them finally exclaimed, looking far more excited than Wooyoung thought the moment warranted. The next moment, he froze in confusion as the words sank in. Had Yeosang talked about him here? A tiny burst of warmth curled in his chest, and he finally allowed a faint grin to break free on his face.

The bright-eyed boy who had been the first to greet him earlier sighed, raising his eyes to the ceiling in faux despair. “Another 99-liner. Great,” he sighed.

Wriggling free from Wooyoung’s grasp, Yeosang turned to face the rest of the boys, his eyes clear and serene once more, all traces of his almost-breakdown wiped clean. “Sorry, Hongjoong hyung,” he said, with perfect insincerity and a lopsided smile. Hongjoong only pouted right back at him.

Wooyoung blinked at the shorter boy, trying to reconcile the intense leader Yeosang had described to him with this small, smiley individual. “I’m Jung Wooyoung,” he said politely, bowing, and immediately a chorus of enthusiastic responses greeted him right back, each of them straining to be heard over the others. Eventually, it took Hongjoong yelling the loudest to get everyone under control, and Wooyoung tried not to cling to Yeosang too obviously as the other led him around for individual introductions.

The funny thing was that he ended up rooming with Yeosang again.

“He’s the only one without a roommate now,” Hongjoong had pointed out. “He used to room with Mingi, but then Jongho joined us and we didn’t want someone new to be alone. Yeosang was the only one we could trust not to turn his room into a dump.”

Wooyoung’s brows furrowed, and a little later, as they were packing to leave the company building, he turned to Yeosang. _Two to a room?_ he mouthed, certain that he must have misheard, but Yeosang only quirked a brow rather enigmatically at him. The next moment, San all but bounced up beside them, dragging his attention away from Yeosang as he began to bombard Wooyoung with questions about what it was like to train at Bighit.

“I mean, did you ever see BTS?” San demanded, his eyes huge with amazement.

Yeosang let out a loud snort from behind them. “You won’t be able to get him to shut up now,” he muttered with a shake of his head, and San turned, looking startled.

“ _You_ shut up,” Wooyoung snapped childishly, tugging San along with him ahead of Yeosang, who chuckled as he fell into step beside Hongjoong and Jongho instead.

San was sweet, Wooyoung thought, even if he did seem like the kind of guy who would look up if he was told that the word ‘gullible’ was on the ceiling and then be surprised that it wasn’t actually there. He just came across as so genuine that Wooyoung wanted to bundle him up in a fluffy coat and cuddle him.

“Ah, that’s so exciting,” San moaned enviously, seeming to collapse in on himself as Wooyoung animatedly described one of the times he had seen BTS in the very same building as him, albeit from a distance. “I wish I got to see celebrities too.”

“So you wish you weren’t training with us?” Yunho seemed to pop out of nowhere, a mischievous smile on his face as he waited for San’s reaction. “Because that’s the only way you’re going to see idols, you know. Maybe you should try to transfer to SM.”

San gasped, looking appalled at the very thought. “No way!” he huffed, disengaging himself from Wooyoung with surprising speed and throwing himself at Yunho instead. “I could never leave my favourite roommate.” He pressed his cheek to the taller boy’s shoulder, tottering along at an awkward angle.

“I’m your _only_ roommate,” Yunho said dryly, unimpressed, but then he threw a wink Wooyoung’s way, and Wooyoung found himself grinning back as he listened to their banter.

He hadn’t known what to expect, going from one company to the next, but he certainly hadn’t expected to feel so comfortable on his very first day. He still knew next to nothing about them all except for Yeosang, but they were treating him like he already belonged, and it was nice.

The dorm, when they reached it, took Wooyoung’s breath away. For one thing, it had four whole bedrooms. It was absolutely _enormous_.

“This is crazy,” he said for at least the third time, spinning around as he took in the room that he was now sharing with Yeosang. “Absolutely crazy.” Without a second bunk bed crammed into the space, their floor area seemed unreasonably massive. He suddenly spotted one of Yeosang’s drones sitting on a box in the corner, where before he’d never even left them out in the open, and was hit by another strong flash of unreality.

“Hey, you’re okay with the bottom bunk, right?” Yeosang asked, interrupting Wooyoung’s repeated exclamations with a distinct air of amusement.

Wooyoung raised his brows. “I am literally okay with everything about this room,” he declared, “and I’ve slept on the top bunk for two years anyway. It’s time for a change. Now you can start working those skinny legs climbing up and down.”

With a noise of disgust, Yeosang promptly hit him right in the face with a pillow. “I’d forgotten how annoying you were,” he said dryly, but one corner of his mouth was curled up, his eyes soft. “You’re absurd, you know that, Jung Wooyoung? The hugest grade A idiot ever. I can’t believe you’re really here.”

Wooyoung beamed, puffing up with pride. “I really surprised you, didn’t I? It was so hard not to say anything, you know,” he boasted, moving across the room to splay himself starfish-like across his new bed.

Leaning against the side of the frame, Yeosang looked down at him with a cocked brow. “Because you knew that I would’ve told you not to come here,” he said flatly, and it was so close to exactly what Wooyoung had thought that he let out a little snort of laughter.

“Stop being mean to me,” he complained. “This is the first time we’re seeing each other in months.” He reached out, swiping lazily for Yeosang’s hand, but the other boy stepped quickly out of reach, his eyes gleaming.

“Get up and unpack your stuff,” Yeosang said coolly, nudging at Wooyoung’s ankle with his foot. A moment later, he heard the faint creak of Yeosang climbing up into his bunk. Closing his eyes, he breathed in deeply. The room smelled new and strange to him, but Yeosang was right above him, and there were new friends waiting to be made. For a new start, this really wasn’t so bad at all.

Once again, Wooyoung settled into a routine not at all dissimilar to his previous one. There was school, and then there was training, each day almost indistinguishable from the other. He and Yeosang resumed their evening dance practices, although this time they were regularly joined by San, who rarely seemed to run out of energy when it came to practice. Wooyoung didn’t mind the additional company, although he did get slightly keyed up every time Mingi or Yunho dropped by, which Yeosang never failed to mock him for afterward.

“You just get so competitive,” he said one night, tucked up at the foot of Wooyoung’s bed with his pen and notebook in hand. “Your face makes it so obvious. They’re good, you’re good. What’s the big deal?”

Wooyoung shrugged, resisting the urge to kick Yeosang’s thigh in case he ruined whatever he was drawing right then. “I don’t know,” he muttered indignantly. “They’re just so skilled. I mean, it’s amazing and I love watching them dance, but it also makes me feel like – what if I’m not good enough? I’m here as a dancer. I’m _supposed_ to be good at dancing.” He picked at a loose thread in his blanket, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth.

Finally, Yeosang looked up. There was a slight furrow between his brows as he turned to glance at Wooyoung, that slow, thoughtful consideration on his face that meant he was trying to decide how best to word his thoughts.

“You _are_ good, Wooyoung,” he said at last, “but you can’t always be the best at everything. You’re better at some things, and they’re better at other things, that’s all. You can work on the areas you think you’re lacking in, but you can’t start off with the mindset of already thinking you’re shit. That’s just – you know, not healthy. You’re setting yourself up to fail. You have to be good enough for yourself first, otherwise you’ll be miserable all the time.”

Yeosang’s face twisted oddly for a moment before he shook himself and returned to his drawing, but there was an air of melancholy about him now that Wooyoung didn’t understand. Crawling over from the other side of his bed, he pushed his way under Yeosang’s arm like an over-sized cat, making the other boy hiss in irritation.

“I’m _doing_ something,” Yeosang said sharply, but he didn’t push Wooyoung away. Wooyoung couldn’t remember a moment where he actually had.

“You know you’re good enough, right?” he said, sitting up and taking Yeosang’s hand in his instead. “You practice all the time. You try the hardest out of everyone. You’ve improved so much compared to before.”

Yeosang gave him a very small smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m not really good at anything, Wooyoung,” he said gently, almost pityingly. “It’s the truth. I do practice hard, but really I’m just here because of my face.”

For a second, Wooyoung felt a surge of anger so strong that he could hardly speak. “That’s not true and you know it,” he spat, so abruptly and irrationally furious that he was shaking. “You’re a better dancer than half of this team. You _are_. Your voice is beautiful – it stands out because it’s different, and you sound amazing with the right songs. You’re super smart, and you learn routines quickly, and you’re funny. You can’t just _learn_ to be funny. You’re good at so many things, Kang Yeosang, and just because one company didn’t pick you for their debut team doesn’t suddenly make you worthless.”

Yeosang looked away, his jaw clenched. He looked very tired all of a sudden, and Wooyoung’s anger dissipated like mist, leaving only the despairing pain of knowing how lowly Yeosang truly thought of himself.

“I’ll train more with Yunho and Mingi,” he whispered, sliding his arms around Yeosang, settling just beneath the curve of his ribcage. “I’ll learn from them, I promise. If we’re going to debut in the same group, I guess I shouldn’t be jealous of them.” He could feel the soft rise and fall of Yeosang’s chest, the heat of his skin bleeding out through his thin pyjamas top.

Wooyoung said it like a compromise, an _I’ll train with them_ for an _I deserve to be here_ , but Yeosang refused to respond, his frame stiff in Wooyoung’s hold.

“You know I love you, right? I love you so much,” he said quietly, lowering his head to Yeosang’s shoulder. It felt like the biggest truth that Wooyoung had ever said out loud, filling the room with a hushed, languid intensity.

Yeosang was silent for a long moment, and then he tilted his head to rest gently against Wooyoung’s.

“I’m grateful every single day that you’re here with me, Jung Wooyoung,” he said, and Wooyoung understood enough to know that Yeosang’s truth meant exactly the same thing as his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have done my best to align this fic as closely to canon as possible, and this is the only chapter where I have knowingly deviated, bc sometimes we gotta sacrifice accuracy for dramatic effect lol. In this case, Mingi (the real one) has said that he was shown a video of WY dancing before he joined and felt threatened by WY's skills, so presumably YS would've known about WY joining KQ beforehand as well. Let's just...pretend he missed the memo or something.


	4. Chapter 4

Wooyoung had joined KQ for Yeosang, but he hadn’t expected to find a whole new family along the way.

It wasn’t quite the same as the relationships he had developed before. Those were bonds forged naturally over the passage of time, most of them tenuous with the constant awareness of ever-present competition. Only the rare few settled into deeper friendship; as for the other trainees – well, Wooyoung could have taken or left them.

These six new faces, however, were here to stay. He still didn’t know everything about them, couldn’t read them in a glance in the way he and Yeosang almost always could when it came to each other, but he was doing his best.

He made awkward conversation with Hongjoong over breakfast, and accompanied Seonghwa on snack runs. He listened to Jongho’s favourite songs and argued with him over the relative merits of one singer over another. He barged his way into San and Yunho’s gaming sessions despite his complete lack of expertise, and challenged Mingi to increasingly wild dance-offs that inevitably left Hongjoong with a headache.

These were friendships that Wooyoung threw himself into building, fact by fact and day by day. These boys were not his rivals, he reminded himself, and he was determined to know them inside out by the time they debuted, or at least as much as they would allow him in. He wanted to trust them, and it seemed that they wanted the exact same thing.

With all the time he spent in the studio on top of their usual practices, Hongjoong rarely had a minute to himself, but he was always the one who woke Wooyoung in the morning for school, bodily dragging him out of bed with Yeosang’s help. Seonghwa seemed cold at first glance, but he was the one who packed Wooyoung’s lunches and endured his constant pranks with grimacing grace. Jongho was less expressive, but sometimes he would come to sit by Wooyoung’s side, only to scramble for an escape when Wooyoung actually turned the full force of his clingy affection on the younger boy.

As for the rest of the 99-line, Wooyoung got along with them so well that it was almost frightening. Yunho shared much of his humour, and didn’t seem to mind when Wooyoung clung to him like a limpet, sometimes on his tiptoes to properly wrap himself around Yunho’s larger frame. Mingi was a sensitive soul wrapped up in a whirlwind, and Wooyoung almost had trouble keeping up with him at times, which wasn’t to say that he didn’t try.

San, put most simply, felt like a kindred spirit. They were so much alike that sometimes Wooyoung looked at San and wondered if the others felt for him the same way he felt about San. San was most often the one who came over just to pat Wooyoung on the head for no discernible reason, or to snuggle with him on the couch in front of the TV, or to wrap his arms around Wooyoung when they were supposed to be listening to their vocal coach. There was something indescribably warm about San’s presence.

If Yeosang made Wooyoung braver, and stronger, and so much more than what he already was, it was San who filled all the little gaps in him, a part of his life he hadn’t known was missing until the moment they met.

The eight of them weren’t seamless quite yet, still only almost a team instead of actually being one, but they were all trying, and that made all the difference in the world.

To Yeosang, Wooyoung gave his nights, those precious moments, however long or short, before they turned out the lights and said their goodnights. Sitting together beneath the yellow lights with their door shut against the rest of the world, it felt to him like they were the only two people in their own little universe. Most of the time they didn’t even speak. Sometimes Yeosang sat on the ground fiddling with his drones while Wooyoung muttered curses under his breath as he grappled with the newest game he had downloaded on his phone; other times they crammed themselves into Wooyoung’s bed, Yeosang dozing against him with his head snug against the dip of Wooyoung’s lower back, while Wooyoung rested his chin on one palm with a book in the other.

For Wooyoung, this was what safety felt like – this room and this person who meant more to him than anyone but his family.

But maybe it was the very fact that Yeosang meant so much to him that made some things so difficult to say. Wooyoung always waited until after dark, until he was blinking through the gloom at the faint outline of the closet, or staring up at the pale blank underbelly of Yeosang’s bunk, because some things slipped out easier when they weren’t face-to-face.

“Yeosang,” he would start, and then he would wait until he heard Yeosang’s faint _hmm?_ in return.

_You danced well today_ , he would continue, or _Seonghwa hyung said that he liked the way you sang that last note during practice today_ , or _Only you noticed that San hurt his ankle today, you know_. Wooyoung collected all the little things that made Yeosang shine in his eyes, all the subtle kindnesses hidden beneath his sharp edges, and tried to convey that shine as best he could.

It was heavy-handed, but Wooyoung had never pretended to be anything else.

He was only nineteen. He hadn’t yet realised that some things could only be fixed by Yeosang himself.

After a while, Yeosang started leaving him doodles again. In the mornings, tucked into the pocket of his uniform, there would be a _Wooyoung fighting!_ with a little figure waving pom-poms, or holding a banner, or scrawling the message onto a whiteboard. Sometimes, often, there were little hearts drawn around the figure with the flower on its head, and Wooyoung always had a smile on his face even before leaving their bedroom.

It was a novelty to spend the year with an unchanging set of faces. No one came, and no one left, and Wooyoung decided that he liked it that way.

That was also the year that Wooyoung celebrated Halloween for the first time. His family had never taken much notice of the western holiday, but it was a fan favourite, said their manager, and they might as well go out and take in the sights at Itaewon before they debuted.

“We should dress up!” San cried excitedly, but they had too little money and too little time for such pursuits, even though Hongjoong did offer to put his reforming skills to good use. In the end, Yunho and Mingi went out and bought eight pairs of large, furry cat ear headbands for all of them. Jongho turned puce at the sight, but looked quite adorable with tiger-striped ears poking out of his hair. They took turns drawing little triangular noses and thin whiskers on each other’s cheeks, laughing a little too much each time someone’s hand shook and they had to start the whisker over.

The moment they got out of the subway, the noise of the crowd swelled to a deafening chatter, and Wooyoung felt Hongjoong link their arms together almost defensively. “Stay together!” he called, pulling Wooyoung along through the thronging crowd. On Hongjoong’s other side, Mingi was almost bouncing, looking thrilled at the various blood-stained and glitter-covered costumes parading past them, only Hongjoong’s tight grip on his fingers preventing him from wandering off.

For just a second, Wooyoung caught sight of San clinging on to Yunho through the crowd, with Jongho looking calmly around beside them. The next moment, he was distracted by the thumping bass of the music pouring out from various bars along the street, the atmosphere that washed over them thick and pulsing with a mad sort of zeal. A lot of the people here were tipsy, he realised, and he shifted closer to Hongjoong, suddenly intimidated.

“Let’s find something to eat. I’m hungry,” Mingi yelled, but even then he was barely audible to Wooyoung. The taller boy slung his arm over Hongjoong’s shoulder, flinching momentarily when he bumped shoulders with a laughing vampire, and the three of them made their way over to the nearest open-air food cart.

“Ice cream,” Wooyoung gasped, his mood immediately bubbling into happiness at the sight. Slipping free from Hongjoong’s grasp, he bent to peer at the various flavours in the freezer.

“Don’t you guys want to eat proper food first?” Hongjoong asked, with the resigned tone of someone who already knew that he wasn’t going to get his way.

“But it’s _Turkish_ ice cream, hyung!” Mingi said loudly, as if that made any difference at all.

“They have kebabs too,” Wooyoung cried gleefully, wrapping his arms about Hongjoong and snuggling as close as their padded coats would allow. “We could get both.”

“The ice cream will melt while we finish our kebabs,” Hongjoong tried, sounding sulky, but he was soundly over-ruled by both Mingi and Wooyoung.

“Should we get ice cream for the others as well?” Wooyoung mused, but Hongjoong was quite adamant that he would not be carrying five melting cones around the entire time if they didn’t manage to meet up with the rest of the team in time.

“You’re no fun,” Wooyoung said with a pout, but the injustice was forgotten once he had a kebab in one hand and a cone in another. He took turns nibbling from each, ignoring the expression of horrified disgust on Hongjoong’s face.

There wasn’t actually much they could do, with little cash and even less inclination to get roaring drunk like some of the revellers around them, but the sheer boisterousness of their surroundings made their stroll an entertaining one all the same. At one point, a group of bloodied zombies walked past them, one of them turning suddenly to snarl at Mingi, his pale eyes flashing. Mingi shrieked and all but leapt into Wooyoung’s arms, and even Hongjoong doubled over with laughter at the scene.

They bumped into Yeosang and Seonghwa at some point in the evening, and Wooyoung gasped to see that Seonghwa’s headband was missing from sight. “It must have gotten knocked off,” the older boy said mournfully, looking actually regretful at the thought. “I didn’t even realise it was gone until Yeosang mentioned it.”

Yeosang wasn’t even listening. He had zeroed in almost immediately on Wooyoung’s half-finished ice cream, his eyes coming alive with the sort of feral interest that only appeared anytime sugar was involved.

“I told you we should have gotten separate ice creams for them,” Wooyoung complained to Hongjoong, even as he held his own cone up for Yeosang to devour, the other boy steadying Wooyoung’s hand with his own so the ice cream wouldn’t smear itself over his face.

“You still have your kebab,” Yeosang pointed out, and he looked so immensely pleased that Wooyoung could only manage another sigh.

Yeosang stayed by Wooyoung’s side for the rest of the night, his fingers curled loosely in the crook of Wooyoung’s elbow until Wooyoung pulled it into a more secure hold. He chatted with Mingi and Seonghwa whenever they happened to drift into his periphery, but otherwise he was quiet, taking in the sights with an interest that began to wane as the minutes passed. Yeosang had never been one for the crowds and parties, and Wooyoung could tell that he was growing tired of the constant rush around them.

“Are we going back soon?” Wooyoung demanded loudly after some time, inserting what he thought was an appropriate amount of whininess into his voice. Sure enough, Seonghwa winced, and moved to whisper something in Hongjoong’s ear.

“We’ll call Yunho and meet up with everyone else, and then we can leave,” Hongjoong said after a moment, looking back and muttering to himself as he counted them all. He looked somewhat harassed, like he hadn’t enjoyed himself all that much, and right then Wooyoung felt quite sorry for Hongjoong. He definitely wouldn’t want to be stuck as their leader – not that anyone would want Wooyoung as their leader, he thought wryly to himself.

Reaching out, he tugged Hongjoong’s headband back into place, saving it from where it had been listing backwards at a dangerous angle. Patting at the gold-furred ears on his head, Hongjoong shot Wooyoung a distracted smile, his hand squeezing Wooyoung’s for a heartbeat before he moved a few paces away with his phone against his ear.

Turning his attention back to Yeosang, who had his shoulder pressed to Wooyoung’s as he stared at a group of young women dressed as Disney princesses, Wooyoung couldn’t help grinning at the sight of the black ears poking out from Yeosang’s hair, looking almost as if they belonged.

“You look so cute,” he cooed, and was immediately rewarded with Yeosang’s expression of disgust as he shifted to face Wooyoung. “Make a cute pose and say _meow_!” He pulled his phone out and stepped backwards, rocking eagerly on his heels as he tried to find a good angle for a photo.

“Shut up,” Yeosang muttered, but there was a reluctant smile sneaking its way onto his face beneath the glare of his eyes.

“Just once,” Wooyoung pleaded, jutting his lower lip out into a pout, the adorable one that he knew Yeosang could never resist. “Come on, Yeosang, we never get to dress up like this.”

Sure enough, after rolling his eyes, Yeosang fixed his most aggravated glare on the camera. “Meow,” he said, deadpan, and brought one loosely-clenched fist to the side of his cheek like a cat’s paw. Wooyoung squealed with excitement, the flash illuminating Yeosang’s face and throwing the dull pink of his birthmark into stark relief. He captured the next moment too, the half-smile that always emerged after humouring Wooyoung’s antics, and then the startled look on his face when someone else abruptly leaped into the frame, his face painted like a leopard’s to match the ears on his head.

“San?” Yeosang sputtered, grabbing the intruder by the shoulders to stare at his face.

San let out an over-excited giggle, dragging Yeosang around to point at Jongho and Yunho, who were still trailing up behind him. “Look! Yunho paid for us,” he said, his fingers laced tight with Yeosang’s. Yunho’s face was clean, but Jongho’s was carefully painted burnished orange with black stripes, and he didn’t look half as disgruntled as Wooyoung would have expected.

“That is so cool!” Mingi cried, running up to stare his roommate in the face. “I want to get my face painted too.”

“Sorry, Mingi,” Hongjoong sighed, although he didn’t sound particularly apologetic. “We have to start heading back or we’ll miss curfew. Maybe next time.”

Mingi, never one to complain, only shrugged and went back to admiring Jongho’s face paint, babbling excitedly to him about everything they had seen and eaten along the way.

San had pulled ahead with Yeosang, their heads close together as they chatted over the noise, and Wooyoung put on a burst of speed to catch up. He almost threw San to the ground as he leaped onto the other boy’s back in a poorly-planned attempt at a piggyback ride, and only Yeosang bracing himself against San’s shoulder prevented both San and Wooyoung from tumbling into a heap on the concrete.

“Kids, stop playing around!” Seonghwa called tiredly from behind them.

It was a miracle that they managed to return to the dorm unscathed.

Not long after, Wooyoung celebrated his very first birthday with the team. The cake was shoddily decorated but full of heart, even if Wooyoung’s jaw physically dropped when Jongho first brought it in. It wasn’t an ugly cake by any means, but the various candles and letters scattered on it definitely belonged somewhere in the realm of chaotic.

“Make a wish!” Yunho called, and Wooyoung obediently ducked his head, his eyes slipping shut. Around him, he could hear Hongjoong hushing the others, and feel the warmth of Yeosang and Mingi pressed against either side of him, all of them waiting with bated breath for him to open his eyes once more.

_Let us stay together, all eight of us, just like this._

In the end, at least half the cake ended up smeared on his face before the night was over, although Yeosang somehow managed to snag a slice before disaster struck, and tucked himself away on the couch to enjoy the sight of Mingi holding down a shrieking, icing-smudged Wooyoung. Seonghwa almost had an aneurysm at the mess and had to be talked down from losing it right there and then by a laughing Hongjoong.

There were no presents, nor had Wooyoung expected any – the cake had cost quite enough – but San and Yunho offered to cover his chores for a week each, and he was perfectly happy to accept their offer.

It was past midnight by the time he tumbled into bed, warm and lazy with contentment, like a cat that had lain too long in the sun. Yeosang came in a little later, his hair still damp from the shower and falling messily past his eyes.

“You need a haircut,” Wooyoung said through a yawn, and Yeosang only snorted in response.

He waited for another moment, and then continued lightly, teasingly, “You didn’t get me anything for my birthday.”

Yeosang turned to face him, towel draped over the top of his head and hanging down on both sides of his face. “Well, what did you expect me to get you?” he asked, smiling and relaxed as Wooyoung pouted.

“I dunno,” he admitted, grinning. “Maybe a drawing or something.”

Yeosang crinkled his nose. “But I already draw you something almost every day. Do you even keep them?”

“Of course I keep them!” Wooyoung sat up swiftly, offended. “What do you take me for? Anyway, you could’ve drawn me something special. Maybe coloured it in or something.” Huffing, he watched as Yeosang flicked the light switch off, plunging the room into near-darkness. He could just barely make out Yeosang’s silhouette as he climbed up into his bunk and disappeared from view, the frame creaking faintly in protest.

“Ask for something else,” Yeosang said at last, quietly, his voice disembodied and strangely faraway, but one that Wooyoung would still recognise anywhere.

He didn’t know what he wanted from Yeosang really. He wanted everything, but he also wanted nothing at all.

“Sing to me.” His voice came out so small that even in the stillness, he wasn’t sure that Yeosang had heard him at all, but it only took a few heartbeats for Yeosang to start, his voice low but clear. Just hearing the first two lines was enough to make Wooyoung smile – he had blasted this song everywhere he went for the past few months, so many times that he was sure the entire team had the lyrics memorised by now.

It was a beautiful song by his favourite group, but at its core it had also always evoked a deep sadness in him, a fear of things passing him by, of chances missed.

Sliding quietly out of bed, Wooyoung scrambled up onto the upper bunk, goosebumps prickling along his skin. Yeosang’s voice trailed off at the beginning of the second verse, but he seemed unsurprised to have Wooyoung crawl into his bed, only shifting back quietly to make space. The pillow was slightly warm where Yeosang had been lying, and it smelled like him – like the shampoo they both used and a distinct, neutral sort of fragrance that was purely Yeosang.

Wooyoung closed his eyes as Yeosang’s arm slipped over his waist, his breath warm and even against the back of Wooyoung’s neck. He felt suddenly very much awake, and very aware of Yeosang’s proximity, even though they had probably held each other closer during violent headlocks just for fun before. Interlocking their fingers gently, Wooyoung pulled Yeosang’s hand up to his chin, and ever so carefully, he dipped his head to press his lips to the soft skin on the back of Yeosang’s hand.

He felt a muscle jump in Yeosang’s forearm as he kissed a knuckle this time, just a feather-light touch that he didn’t dare to allow to linger.

“Wooyoung...” Yeosang exhaled his name like he wanted to say something more, and the silence that followed made Wooyoung’s gut churn.

“Sorry,” he whispered, stricken, as he tried to detach his hand from Yeosang’s. He felt almost physically ill, light-headed not with embarrassment but with dread. He had always tried to be so careful around Yeosang, whose emotions ran still and deep, and who had only started smiling more freely because he had, for whatever unfathomable reason, decided to become an idol. He had always tried not to push too far or too hard, too afraid of Yeosang taking even the tiniest step away from him to stop dancing around the possibilities between them.

He didn’t know what had changed – a moment of madness, perhaps. A remnant of the last hours of his birthday, where he had felt like he could do no wrong. That song, of all songs, that Yeosang had chosen to sing for him.

“No, don’t,” Yeosang murmured suddenly, and this time it was he who tightened his grip and refused to let Wooyoung pull away. Confusion froze him momentarily, and he felt Yeosang press closer, the cool tip of his nose nuzzling into Wooyoung’s neck. For a moment, he thought quite wildly that Yeosang might kiss him right there, but Yeosang only fell still, unsteadily breathing Wooyoung in like there was no other way for him to survive.

It was only when Wooyoung turned, shifting awkwardly onto his back and then onto his side so that he was facing Yeosang, that Yeosang flinched away. His eyes gleamed like liquid in the darkness, and Wooyoung didn’t have to be able to make out his features to know that he was staring, tense and motionless.

He didn’t know what made him say it out loud in the end, only that he was tired, and very much in love, and perhaps just a little bit tired of being so fruitlessly in love.

Whatever the case, Wooyoung said quite abruptly, “I really love you, Kang Yeosang,” and he knew they both heard the way his voice broke in the middle. “I really, really love you. I don’t just want to debut with you. I want to do so many things with you. I want us to do everything we want, and I want us to be together when we do those things. I want to be with you always.”

Yeosang was quiet for a long moment, but Wooyoung was used to waiting. He knew that Yeosang didn’t mean to be cruel, and especially not to him. He just didn’t like to be put on the spot; Yeosang had always needed time to think, to phrase his responses just so.

“Always is a really long time to be stuck with me,” was all Yeosang replied at last.

Wooyoung couldn’t help cracking a smile at that. “I know. That’s why I said it.”

Yeosang blinked at him guardedly. “Okay,” he said, but more to himself than anything, like a gathering of courage.

Ever so slowly, as if Wooyoung was a wild animal he might accidentally frighten away, Yeosang’s fingers curled over the nape of his neck, pulling him closer. Their noses were bumping clumsily before Wooyoung quite registered exactly what was happening, and then Yeosang’s mouth was pressing against his, soft and careful. He tried to mimic the hesitant parting of Yeosang’s lips as they searched for the right angle, and he felt quite clearly the moment Yeosang started to smile at the absurdity of their fumbling.

“Don’t laugh,” Wooyoung muttered, heady with the taste of Yeosang on his tongue and his scent all around. Yeosang let out a soft noise as Wooyoung’s fingers pressed into his hip, and a shiver ran up Wooyoung’s spine at the sheer rawness of the sound. He shifted even closer, eyes sliding shut, and for that one exquisite moment his every sense was comprised of Yeosang alone, the warmth and magic of his entire being twined with Wooyoung’s.

They were both flushed and panting when they parted, lips slick and sensitive, and Wooyoung was fairly sure that his neck was burning up beneath Yeosang’s touch. In truth, he felt so dizzy with joy that he could hardly speak.

“I love you,” was all he could manage, and all he could think of to say, the words somehow that much more precious for having been said out loud before.

“I know,” Yeosang said, and Wooyoung could clearly hear the subtle mirth in his voice.

“Don’t make me ask you to say it back,” he groaned, throwing an arm across his eyes dramatically.

The sound of Yeosang’s quiet laughter was sweet to Wooyoung’s ears, but even sweeter was the fervent honesty in his voice when he said, “I love you, Jung Wooyoung. I really do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so sappy help lmao.
> 
> Anyway, the song Yeosang sings is BTS' The Truth Untold.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of trivia before we begin the end: This was supposed to be a one-shot, and then I hit 3k words and they were _still_ at Bighit, which was when I got the inkling that this one-shot thing wasn't gonna work out. And then it was supposed to end at chapter 4, but the Halloween scene got completely out of control lol.

Change was something that Wooyoung was accustomed to, something he had always thought he understood, but some changes were harder to get used to than others. 

It wasn’t anything to do Yeosang. Nothing had really changed between them, not outwardly at least, although on the inside Wooyoung now constantly felt like a boiling pot about to overflow with bliss. Yeosang would never be the kind of person who was comfortable kissing him when other people were around, and Wooyoung was fine with that. In fact, he wasn’t even completely sure if the other members knew that they were together.

It might have hurt, that Yeosang seemed so embarrassed to express his affections openly, but mostly Wooyoung just found it endlessly endearing. There were plenty of things Yeosang got embarrassed about – he buried his face in his hands whenever Hongjoong whipped out his Michael Jackson impression, and he blushed furiously whenever anyone called him handsome, regardless of the fact that he must have heard it a thousand times already.

There was very little Yeosang could do that would upset Wooyoung.

It was only a few months later, when they were told that they were headed to America for training, that everything really began to change. Wooyoung had never even been on a plane before, much less to somewhere as far away as Los Angeles. It all felt more like a dream than real life.

“They’re going to _film_ us,” he repeated, baffled. “Who on earth is going to watch our videos?”

Judging by the wide-eyed, unexaggerated surprise all over Jongho’s face, their youngest didn’t have a clue either.

Everything started moving at lightspeed from there. Suddenly, upon their return from America, they were told that they had a group name. Suddenly, they weren’t just a collection of assorted KQ trainees but a team called ATEEZ. Suddenly, they had a debut date.

Suddenly, five months didn’t feel like a very long time at all.

“Someone pinch me,” Yeosang said blankly, and hissed out a furious _ow_ when Mingi did just that.

“Kids, you know who’s going to be producing our new reality show, right?” Hongjoong said, looking around at them all with his sharp smile. “This isn’t just going to be a couple of videos on YouTube. This is _Mnet_. We have to do well. We have to show everyone that we have what it takes, okay?”

“ATEEZ fighting!” Wooyoung called, filled with nervous energy, and he beamed when the rest of the boys took up the cheer, loud and resounding.

Wooyoung had thought that he had known exhaustion as a trainee, but all at once consecutive sleepless nights became par for the course instead of a sporadic occurrence. Half the time, after twelve hours straight of dancing, he was too drained to even eat. San constantly fell asleep on top of his homework, and even Yunho seemed just about ready to give up on school. Only Jongho somehow managed to power through both with a grim, dogged determination.

Between filming and the constant practice, the days and nights began to mesh together, rolling by without change. Wooyoung couldn’t remember the last time he had had a proper conversation with Yeosang, let alone the other members. If he showered first, he was always out like a light before Yeosang ever set foot back into the room; if he showered later, it was the soft, steady breathing of Yeosang deep asleep that greeted him as he prepared for bed.

These days, it felt as if they spent more time together outside of their room than in it, precious minutes stolen between practice sessions and after meals. If Yeosang was sprawled on the floor with his back against the wall, his chest still heaving, Wooyoung would collapse beside him and press their shoulders together, both of them sticky with sweat. Yeosang’s hand would come to rest over his, his palm damp and too warm to be comfortable, but Wooyoung wouldn’t pull away until San leaped over to drag him back to the centre of the practice room, eager to show him something or other. Other times, Seonghwa might wander over to talk to Yeosang about vocal training, and Yeosang would squeeze Wooyoung’s hand lightly before moving to sit by the older boy instead.

It wasn’t much, but Wooyoung didn’t need anything more.

Eventually, he decided that the road to debuting felt a lot like a marathon. The endpoint was nice to think about in an abstract fashion, but it was really all he could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other at present. He would reach the end when he reached – for now, he just had to remember to breathe and keep his eyes one step ahead.

Most of the time, he was fine. He was perhaps more inclined to pick fights with Mingi and San on particularly bad days, but all in all Wooyoung was prone to zoning out rather than snapping when he was tired, and it helped that Yeosang was even-tempered enough to keep him grounded when he got grouchy.

That was why the day Wooyoung reached the company building after school to find a distinctly upset Yeosang was unusual, to say the least.

“Where’s Yeosang?” he asked, as he passed by San and Seonghwa, who seemed to be puzzling through their latest English lessons together.

San blinked up at him wearily, but it was Seonghwa who shrugged. “One of the practice rooms, probably,” he said unhelpfully. “I haven’t seen him since he got here about half an hour ago.”

Wooyoung grinned. “Okay,” he chirped, and trotted off in the direction of the practice rooms. He peeked into two of the smaller rooms before finding Yeosang in the third, seated before the keyboard doing his vocal warmups.

“Hey,” Wooyoung said brightly, swinging his bag off his shoulder as he walked in and dumping it carelessly on the floor. He shoved his way onto the seat beside Yeosang, slinging an arm across the other’s shoulders.

“Wooyoung, I’m practicing,” Yeosang said sharply, every syllable staccato with annoyance. He shifted abruptly, as if to shrug Wooyoung’s arm off him, and the small motion was so utterly unexpected that Wooyoung simply let it happen. He was still for a moment, just staring at Yeosang in surprise while Yeosang stared silently at the keyboard in turn.

“Hey,” he said hesitantly as he laid a hand on Yeosang’s arm. He had never felt so completely wrong-footed around Yeosang before. He had seen Yeosang irritated countless times, but this felt deeper somehow, like something very close to true anger, and Wooyoung didn’t quite know how to handle it.

“Unless you have something to say to me, don’t bother me,” Yeosang said shortly. His eyes were still fixed on the black and white keys, and Wooyoung felt like he had been slapped.

“Was it something I did?” he asked, more confused than ever. One of Yeosang’s defining characteristics was his honesty, no matter how painful the truth, and this cool displeasure was more frightening and more alien than Yeosang simply shouting his frustrations at Wooyoung.

Yeosang closed his eyes, looking tired. “No, it’s not you, Wooyoung.” His voice softened for just a moment around the syllables of Wooyoung’s name, and it made something in Wooyoung’s chest pang painfully.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “I’m kind of tired, so I guess I’ll go and nap. Could you wake me up for dance practice?” He stood, his hand lifting in an aborted motion to rest on Yeosang’s shoulder before he swiftly retreated to the row of benches in the corner of the room. He tried to think back to the last thing he had said to Yeosang, the last time they had seen each other, but nothing substantial came to mind.

It probably wasn’t him, he told himself, a futile attempt at reassurance. Yeosang had said so.

When he opened his eyes forty-five minutes later, it was to Yeosang’s face four inches away from his, one hand shaking Wooyoung’s shoulder gently. “We have to go,” Yeosang said quietly, pushing a bottle of water into Wooyoung’s hands. He stepped back as Wooyoung pushed himself up, blinking the sleep out of his eyes.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, stifling a yawn. He reached out for Yeosang’s hand and followed him out of the practice room, down the halls and towards the dance studio. The anger seemed to have leached out of Yeosang during Wooyoung’s nap, but there was still something off-balance about him, a subtle unhappiness that manifested itself in the faintest of furrows between his brows, the thin press of his lips together.

“Hey,” Wooyoung whispered, his voice dropping until he was almost mouthing the words. “I love you.” He nudged his shoulder into Yeosang’s playfully, tense with anticipation as Yeosang tilted his head slightly, one eyebrow raising in a bemused fashion.

“I know,” he murmured, warm and gentle, his mouth finally tilting into a wry smile. A small laugh burst out of Wooyoung at that, high-pitched and just a little nervous, but also full of relief.

Later, back in their room as he waited for Yeosang to get out of the shower, Wooyoung lay down spread-eagled on the floor for a full minute, enjoying the sensation of finally relaxing every aching muscle in his body. Rolling over, he dug through his bag for his phone for the first time that day, its screen lighting up in welcome as he pulled it free. There were a number of texts waiting for him, and a calendar reminder, but the first thing he saw was the day and date displayed prominently on the screen, right beneath the time.

_Saturday_ , which meant that he wouldn’t have to wake up as early the next morning, and _16 June_ , because it was already half past midnight.

Wooyoung’s breath caught in his throat. He felt as if the entire planet had just dropped out from beneath him, horror locking him into place as he stared at the date, willing it to change before his eyes. Finally, tearing his eyes away from the screen, he pushed himself up and crashed out of the room, probably looking slightly unhinged. The living room was empty, so he made for Hongjoong and Seonghwa’s room instead.

“Hyung!” he gasped, wrenching the door open and clearly catching both older boys by surprise. Seonghwa sat up quite suddenly, and Hongjoong jumped, letting out a muffled shout when his head bumped into the bedframe with an audible _thump_.

“What is it?” Seonghwa asked, already beginning to get out of bed, his eyes dark with worry.

Wooyoung wrung his hands, jittery with distress. “It was Yeosang’s birthday yesterday!” he wailed. “We all forgot, didn’t we? None of you wished him happy birthday, right? I knew he was acting weird, but I didn’t know _why_.” The sudden memory of Yeosang’s deflated posture hit him with the force of a baseball bat, and Wooyoung buried his face in his hands in despair.

How hurt must Yeosang have felt, to have not a single member of their team remember his birthday, even Wooyoung?

“I’m an awful friend,” he moaned, leaning into Seonghwa’s embrace when he felt the other pull him close.

“We’ll have to celebrate tomorrow. It’s so late now, and I don’t know if the others are already asleep. We – the three of us – we’ll wish him happy birthday first, once he’s done.” Hongjoong sounded uncharacteristically flustered as he spoke. “We’ll bring him out for chicken tomorrow, all of us. _Ah_ – I can’t believe this happened.”

“Hongjoong, we’ve all been busy. It’s not your fault.” Seonghwa’s voice was calming as he turned to face their leader, keeping one arm tight around Wooyoung. “It’s not anyone’s fault.”

“I –” Hongjoong started, before faltering and falling silent at the distant sound of a door opening. Wooyoung lifted his head, taking a step away from Seonghwa as if poised to run to Yeosang, but it was only when Seonghwa gave him a gentle nudge that he startled into action.

“Yeosang!” he cried as he threw open the door, his voice a forceful whisper-shout that froze Yeosang in his tracks where he was down the hall, halfway into their room. Hongjoong and Seonghwa followed him out, and Yeosang looked even more confused at the sight of Wooyoung’s odd entourage.

Suddenly, Hongjoong said, in a rapid-fire burst of apologies that Wooyoung could barely make out, “I’m sorry we forgot, Yeosang. I can’t believe we all just – practice is important, but the members, all of us – we’re the most important. I’m sorry we – ah, I’m sorry –” Yeosang’s expression when Hongjoong threw himself forward in a hug of contrition was almost comical, his arms hovering awkwardly in the air for a moment before he tentatively settled them on Hongjoong’s back.

“Hyung,” he mumbled, looking helplessly over Hongjoong’s shoulder at Seonghwa and Wooyoung. “It’s okay, really. You guys just remembered late, that’s all.”

Pouting, hunched forward in embarrassment with his ears burning, Wooyoung slunk forward. “Happy birthday,” he said softly. “Sorry I’m dumb.”

“You’re not dumb.” Yeosang let go of Hongjoong to move to Wooyoung’s side, and his smile was more radiant than Wooyoung thought he deserved. “It’s not a big deal, and you realised, didn’t you?”

He managed a weak smile in return, his mind already racing. “I have to shower, but – wait up for me?” Wooyoung didn’t stick around to see Yeosang nod before he was rushing back into their room to grab his clothes, leaving Yeosang standing in the corridor with Hongjoong and Seonghwa.

He had known Yeosang’s birthday was coming – of course he had. They had passed three birthdays together, and he had gotten Yeosang a gift for this year’s as well. It wasn’t much, just something he had picked out from one of the roadside stalls that he always passed on his way to school, and he had been looking forward to giving them to Yeosang all week. The day might have passed, but he could at least make sure Yeosang got _something_ before they went to bed.

When he returned after the quickest shower he could manage, Hongjoong and Seonghwa were gone, and Yeosang was sitting on Wooyoung’s bed, blinking sleepily at his phone as he fought to stay awake. He looked up when Wooyoung entered, and his expression flickered for a moment, eyebrows pulling inwards for just a heartbeat.

“Sorry I got mad at you earlier,” he said, sounding subdued. “I didn’t mean it. It was just – I dunno.” He shrugged, setting his phone down as he watched Wooyoung halt in his tracks, open-mouthed.

Wooyoung could hardly believe his ears. “Only you would apologise for feeling sad when all your friends forget your birthday,” he grumbled, opening his closet and plucking a small drawstring pouch out of it. “Here. Happy birthday.” He ducked his head, plopping the pouch onto Yeosang’s lap before bouncing himself onto the mattress.

Opening the pouch, Yeosang peered into it before upending the entire thing and pouring the contents out onto his palm. A set of silver rings tumbled out, simple bands with varying designs of delicate filigree etched onto the surface. They looked like what Wooyoung had seen actual idols wear on TV, albeit far cheaper, he was sure, and he figured that something Yeosang could wear out as casual fashion would probably be better than a cheesy gift like couple rings.

He watched Yeosang anxiously as he inspected the rings one by one, only relaxing the moment a faint smile curled Yeosang’s lips.

“Thank you,” he murmured, finally turning to Wooyoung. “They’re so pretty.” Leaning over, he pecked Wooyoung on the cheek, just a quick, barely-there gesture before he turned his attention back to the rings. Beaming, Wooyoung settled more comfortably against Yeosang’s side, watching as Yeosang fit the rings onto first one finger and then another.

The next day, Wooyoung gleefully filmed the rest of the members’ expressions when they realised that they had all forgotten Yeosang’s birthday, and Yeosang inelegantly snorted half his drink out of his nose when he watched the video again later that afternoon.

Time trundled on again once more after that, blipping forward every time Wooyoung so much as blinked. Everything felt like a blur when he tried to look back on those hectic moments just before their debut, the future barrelling violently towards him before he could even begin to process the present.

Only a few instances stood out crystal clear if he put his mind to it. He remembered quite distinctly the day they had heard their debut song for the very first time, and the awe that had sent goosebumps prickling all the way down his arms. It hadn’t even been about how the song had sounded, but the fundamental understanding that this was it. They were actually going to debut, a solid and unchangeable fact.

At that point, everything had still felt like a dream – still wispy and unreal, but perhaps just a little more solid than before.

The day they went to the studio to record Pirate King stood out as well. Sometimes Wooyoung honestly wondered about himself and his big mouth, especially when that big mouth was why he ended up being pushed into recording first, but mostly he remembered Seonghwa’s recording session far more clearly than his own. The way Seonghwa’s expression had dropped after every successive take had been discomfiting to watch, and when Wooyoung peeked surreptitiously around, he saw the same agitation colouring Jongho’s face.

In a way, Seonghwa had always reminded him a little of Yeosang, both of them unfairly attractive but also far too hard on themselves.

Wooyoung had simply accepted that he would never quite understand that aspect of them. He had moments of self-doubt, but in general his entire personality was such that he had never seriously doubted his own potential for success for very long.

“It’s because you forget all your mistakes twenty minutes after they happen,” Yeosang said dryly to him, when Wooyoung brought the subject up one day.

Wooyoung frowned, straightening slightly. “That’s not true,” he said, almost on the verge of being offended. Seated on Yeosang’s other side, Yunho leaned forward in sudden interest at the sound of discord, and Wooyoung rolled his eyes aggressively at the taller boy.

Looking amused, Yeosang shook his head lightly. “I don’t mean it in a bad way. You make a mistake and you learn from it, and then you forget about that mistake because it’s not useful anymore. You’ve learnt from it and you won’t do it again,” he explained patiently. “For me – and maybe it’s similar for Seonghwa hyung – I make the mistake and I just can’t stop thinking about it even if I’ve learned from it. Making the mistake in the first place makes me feel…incompetent.” The way he hesitated on the last word made Wooyoung suspect that Yeosang had been about to use a harsher word than ‘incompetent’.

“And you can’t just... _stop_ thinking about it?” he ventured cautiously.

The curl of Yeosang’s lip was faintly sardonic. “It’s difficult,” he said simply, reaching out to tilt Wooyoung’s face away from him when Wooyoung began to pout. Opening his mouth, Wooyoung immediately started making a concerted attempt to bite Yeosang’s fingers instead.

“You guys are so gross,” Yunho muttered under his breath, before getting up and moving over to where Mingi was attempting a sing-off with Jongho.

“We weren’t even doing anything!” Wooyoung protested, so stridently that Hongjoong yelled back for him to be quiet.

Looking as if he would like nothing more than to be swallowed up by the earth right then, Yeosang promptly pulled his hand away from Wooyoung’s face and looked away, doing a decent impression of not knowing the person right beside him. Catching the mortified expression on Yeosang’s face from across the room, San burst into laughter, grabbing Hongjoong by the shoulder and pointing over.

“Hyung, look, you embarrassed Yeosang,” he cried, clapping his hand over his mouth as if that would stop his giggles from escaping.

“Mind your own business, Choi San!” Wooyoung called, leaning over to drape himself over Yeosang protectively. He felt Yeosang heave a long-suffering sigh against him, and found himself grinning so widely that his cheeks hurt. The next moment, San was bounding over to lay himself across Yeosang’s legs, adding himself to the snuggle pile while Wooyoung whined and tried to push him away. At that point, it was inevitable that Mingi ended up drifting over as well, drawn to the growing chaos like a magnet, until Seonghwa came over to drag them all up to resume practice.

Just like that, in the span of a few months, Wooyoung somehow managed to accomplish more than he had ever thought he was capable of. They had choreographed half a song in twenty-four hours. They had held an entire fan meeting before ever setting foot on a music show stage. They had kept a full six seconds of his own choreography, move for move, in the final version of Pirate King. They had filmed their music videos – _plural_ – in the far-off desert of Morocco.

It was almost too mind-boggling to contemplate.

As he stared at himself in the mirror, at the grey-eyed and lilac-haired stranger the make-up artist was working her magic on before their debut showcase, Wooyoung realised with a fresh surge of incredulity that his marathon as a trainee was truly about to end. Tonight, he would step onto the stage as an idol. Tonight, he would begin a new journey as one-eighth of ATEEZ.

Hongjoong gathered them all for a last-minute pep talk that did nothing to quell the butterflies fluttering in Wooyoung’s stomach, and then they were left to their own devices, the last fifteen minutes or so of frantic preparation before they had to be hustled backstage. He looked around for Yeosang and found him being fussed over by a tutting hairstylist, the expression on his face almost serene as he stood patiently.

For a split second, Wooyoung saw Yeosang as the fans would – bright, beautiful and completely untouchable. His carefully tousled hair matched the pink smudges of eyeshadow around his eyes, just two shades lighter than the red stripes of the oversized knit top dwarfing him. There was no sign of his birthmark, every hint of it wiped clean with concealer, and it was that more than anything that made Yeosang look like a different person all together, like an unfamiliar twin Wooyoung didn’t recognise.

The next moment, Yeosang’s gaze slid over to land on Wooyoung, and his brows flicked upwards so quickly in acknowledgement that Wooyoung almost missed it. The teasing gesture made him chuckle, and right then the Yeosang he knew beneath the slathered-on make-up was back – shrewd, kind, loyal, and most of all, _his_.

It felt like mere minutes later that they were all crowded in the wings backstage, Wooyoung’s hand clutching Seonghwa’s tightly, their palms clammy against each other. Nudging Seonghwa deliberately hard with his shoulder, Wooyoung shot him a playful smirk that widened into a grin when Seonghwa grimaced in return.

_Hyung, fighting_ , he mouthed, but Seonghwa’s expression only looked more pained than before.

Glancing to his left, Wooyoung’s eyes met Yeosang’s, and he felt a sudden wave of emotions he could hardly even begin to describe. Relief, pride, excitement, apprehension – it all mingled into one weary yet exultant smile. Yeosang seemed too preoccupied to really smile back, and there was a nervous tic in his jaw as he blinked, but his eyes were glowing with the same energy that Wooyoung could feel thrumming through his entire body.

_We’re going to debut together_ , he had promised, and it seemed like a lifetime ago now, but it was a promise he had finally managed to keep.

He could hear the fans screaming even through his in-ear monitor, and something in his chest swelled in anticipation.

Jung Wooyoung was twenty, and still the stage and its spotlights called to him.

He felt Yeosang’s hand brush against his, and he didn’t have to look down to hook their pinkies together.

This was their moment.

This was their triumph.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was for many reasons a very difficult fic to write emotionally, and my eternal gratitude goes to those who managed to make it through this horrendously self-indulgent labour of love. In case it wasn't obvious, this fic is dedicated to woosang and their 6-year (and counting!) friendship, long may it last ♡


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